Consistent entries

The key to mining information from any database is consistency in entries.  Any column in a database can be searchable - the value of the search lies in making "free form" entries look the same.  Huh???

In QuickBooks, many fields are defined - name, address, account.  Fields such as Memo are "free form", meaning you can write whatever you want.  If you will need to search that field for information, then you will need to decide on a format for the Memo field.

For example, my real estate clients collect earnest money from their buyer clients.  Rather that create an invoice and then receive payment, I just use the Make Deposit from Banking to enter these checks.  A client may buy multiple properties over a period of time so to identify the property I enter the address in the memo field.  By using the same format every time, I can perform a search function of the memo field and find every transaction related to a particular property.  This is especially helpful in reconciling the liability account to ensure that the liability was relieved after closing.  It is also an easy way to verify that an earnest deposit was made and when.

Fall cleanup

Labor Day is here already, so fall is just around the corner.  Are you ready to do some fall cleaning on your business records?  Too small to spend money on an accounting software program?  Are you tracking your revenue and expenses on a spreadsheet?  This will make your taxes much easier.  Set up a sheet for each month, showing revenues and expenses by category.  What categories?  Well, how about Automobile for gas, oil changes, tires and other repair work; Cost of Goods sold for any items you buy to resell directly to your customers or using to build/repair something for your customers; Supplies - office, janitorial, maintenance; Computer - track you expenses not only for computers but also monthly fees for programs/apps you use; Utilities; Rent (office or storage space); Labor (1099 contractors, not employees); Insurance (health, life, general liability, errors and omissions).  Get in the habit of entering this information every month (or even better, every week) to make tax time a little less trying.

Have a great day and enjoy the upcoming cooler weather (and for those of in the Southeast, hopefully dryer weather).

Continuing Eduaction

I do accounting and budgeting for an Adult Education program where we are pushing students to take classes and take the GED test before the new, harder version comes out in January 2014.  In my personal life, I began studying for the QuickBooks Advanced Certification late fall/early winter.  If I don't complete the test before mid-September, I will have to first pass the current year test and then begin studying for the new version of the advanced test.  Guess you know what I am doing this week-end?

Learning new facts/programs/skills should be an ongoing process until the day you die.  It keeps the mind active, helps you to understand at least some of the things going on in the world (politics not among them), and provides topics of conversation that are less argumentative than the aforementioned politics.

I am also learning a new software program called Buildium.  My property management client has doubled in size over the past year and needed a more pro-active method of tracking information on properties, tenants and owners.  The new program is web based, so the Property Manager can actually have some time off and other staff members will be able to access information to engage vendors to take care of problems tenants have called in.  While it has taken quite a bit of time to front load all of the information in the new system (thanks goodness for technology which let me copy and paste from one program to another), it will make my life easier as well.

Isn't that another reason to learn new things?

Items – Part II

Today I will discuss the other items types that are not used as often but could be very helpful to you in your business.  Remember, one of the main functions of Items is to make it easy for you to invoice your clients/customers for the items or services they buy from you.

Do you offer delivery services at a fee?  Perhaps the fee is dependent on where the customer lives in relation to where your business is located.  For this circumstance, you will create an Other Charge.  You can also use this item type to charge a flat service charge – for example, a plumber charges $60 to go to a customer’s home to assess the situation.

As a building contractor, you may not stock supplies but purchase them as needed.  To show a charge on the customer’s invoice, you will create a Non-Inventory Item for each item you supply.

Want to total the cost of inventory or non-inventory parts separate from service or hourly labor charges?  Then set up a Subtotal in between the two types of charges.  This will also be helpful for your customers to check taxes if you are only required to charge tax on parts but not labor.

Contractors often require a down payment prior to beginning work.  Use the Payment Item to create a separate line item showing the amount the customer will be paying upon acceptance of the contract/estimate.

Customize Reports - Desktop Part II

One of my clients has been so successful in growing one of their business lines that they are looking at new management software to keep everything organized.  There was immediate panic by employees, dreading the thought of having to hand enter all the customer and vendor information in the new system.

I was able to put them at ease by assuring them that all the information could be pulled from their QuickBooks files.  The first step was to add Custom Fields to both the customer and vendor files, providing a unique identity to the needed files.  Adding this field ID to specific customers and vendors did take a little time, but not near as much as hand entering the data.

Next, I opened the Vendor Contact List Report.   By clicking on the Customize Report button, then the Filters tab you can select the Vendor Type and from the drop down box, you can select the custom field name you chose.  A review of the new software program gave me the data fields required for specific tasks.  I went to the Display tab on Customize Reports to eliminate the fields I didn’t need and add the ones I would need.  The next step was to run the report to see what information was missing from my QuickBooks data.  I memorized the report, entered the missing data, then reran the report and created an Excel worksheet.  I choose to export through Excel as that was an option provided by the new program.

Not only was this a much simpler method of transferring data from one software program to another, it highlighted the information which was missing from the QuickBooks records.

Customize Reports - Desktop Part I

QuickBooks provides its users with a vast array of reports.  This has been expanded in recent versions with reports contributed by users.  Trying to find a contributed report that meets your needs can almost seem like looking for the needle in the haystack.  Customizing a stock report and then saving it in an area you specify with a name that will be easy for you to remember is not difficult.  In this first article, I will explain how to change the columns appearing on your report.

Open the report that meets most of your needs then click on the Customize button (I am working from the report Income by Customer Detail).  The report has more detail to it than my manager wants to see, so I am going to remove some of the columns.  In the Customize box on the Display tab, in the lower left hand corner you will see a list under the header Columns.  The items with a checkmark next to them are the current column headers.  To remove a column from the report, simply click on the item to remove the checkmark.  In the Income by Customer Detail report, I am going to remove the “Account”, “Clr” (this indicates if the transaction has been reconciled), “Split”, “Debit,” “Credit” and “Balance” columns.  Next, I am going to click on “Amount” to add it as a column to my report. I now have a report which highlights the information my manager really needs – how much income the company has received from each customer over the selected period of time.

Next, click on the Header/Footer tab so you can rename the report.  In the Report Title section, highlight the current title and type in your new one.  You can also eliminate information such as time and date the report was prepared by unchecking the box.

When you are finished with your changes, be sure to click on the OK box to save the changes you have made.  If the new report meets your needs, click on the Memorize button to save this report in your company file.  Enter the new name of the report and determine which report group you want to save it to.

Items – Part I

Consider that you are writing a paper invoice for your business – the description that you use for the item of inventory or type of service provided is an Item in QuickBooks.  The sales tax(es) that you charge will also be an Item.  There are 11 different types of Items in QuickBooks.  Today I will discuss the key types and how you would use them in your business

The first type we will look at is the Inventory Part Item.  You will create an Inventory Part for every part that you stock in your business for sale.  This means every size nut and bolt, every color of a 4 ounce skein of baby yarn, every brand of oil filter that you stock in your store for sale.  For each item, you will enter a separate, distinctive name, determine if you want it to be part of a larger group (i.e. the “parent” group is Nuts and each size is a subset of the group).

If you combine individual parts to make a pre-assembled part, then you will record them as an Inventory Assembly Item.

The next type is Service.  If you own a plumbing supply store selling parts to do-it-yourselfers and also have a staff of plumbers who will do the repairs for customers, then you will use both Inventory and Service Items.  The parts you use will be Inventory Items and the labor will be a Service.  As a QuickBooks consultant, I bill for services such a bookkeeping, training, trouble shooting.

The last one to be discussed today is Sales Tax.  For each taxing authority, you will need to set up a separate item for each.  You may be fortunate to only have a single statewide sales tax – then you would only need to set up one tax item.  If you collect sales tax for a city, county, or other designated tax region, you will set up an item for each.  Only enter the amount that goes to each tax authority – i.e. the overall tax you need to charge is 8% where 7% goes to the state and 1% goes to the city.  If you only want to show a single tax line on your invoice, then you will need to create a Sales Tax Group with all of the individual taxes.